Ten Years Later...
by Hitokiri Gentatsu
Summary: Based on a scene in the Seisou Hen (the new OVA) Kenshin contemplates his life.


Ten Years Later…

By: Hitokiri Gentatsu

Author's Note: All the usual disclaimers apply. I got this idea from watching the new OVA on fansub. Kenshin's thoughts on his past and present early in the series.

"That time too it was under a setting sun just like this one. How many…How many people have I killed? And now I am running away. The sword is meant to kill. This is the undeniable fact. Many people follow this philosophy. And now ten years later…But I still don't know if I am ready. My answer is with this sakabatou."

Himura Kenshin

Seisou Hen Part One

Fan sub

Ten years ago the sword I carried was a different blade. It was a katana that was stained crimson with four years worth of spilled blood. It was a hitokiri's sword that took the lives of hundreds and whose razor sharp edge glinted in the darkness for a moment before claiming the lives of unfortunate men who had had the ill luck to cross swords with the infamous Hitokiri Battousai. I had become the embodiment of Katsura-san's vision and beliefs and what Hiko had feared I would become if I left him before I completed my training. I was only a tool used by others, a soldier of chaos whose only purpose was to wreck as much havoc as I could before death claimed me, and a murderer who slew without pity, without reason and who saw no point in living beyond his purpose.

Then, in a fleeting instant, I came to know the price of my actions and discovered it was far higher then I was willing to pay. I was show quite clearly the pain and sorrow I caused others. With my own hands I killed the only one I had ever loved and in that instant of 'madness' I understood what all the others had felt and I have been paying for that instant of 'madness' ever since. After that moment nothing for me was ever the same. I watched the light fade from her dark eyes and my heart knew a deeper pain then any I had ever experienced before and my soul shattered into pieces that rearranged themselves, a new soul built upon the bloody foundation of her death and the ashes of my old life. I kept her diary and the blue scarf she wore with me for a long time after that event, carrying them through the war as a physical reminder of that day but even after I gave those two items up with the passage of the war, there was still a single reminder of that dark time left to me, one that was more lasting then to two items I had relinquished.

Two intersecting lines and a wound that never healed, even with the passage of ten years. The scar, shaped as a cross, which reminds me daily of my guilt. My sins are manifold punishable only by my own death but the deepest guilt I harbor within my soul and the worst sin I committed is symbolized by its two intersecting lines. I destroyed the lives and happiness of the two people whose blades have marked me so visibly. I ripped their chance at happiness from them without thinking before they had the opportunity to enjoy that happiness and to add to the pain I inflicted on them, I destroyed her happiness twice over. Surely I am damned to a life of loneliness and unending sorrow for this crime. I am damned to forever wander the country knowing no happiness or peace again with my hand ever grasping the hilt of a sword, covered in the blood of the hundreds I unthinkingly slew in the cold rage of a hitokiri.

Ten year later have I really changed? The sword I carry now is reversed, symbolizing the atonement I must make to others and to her. I find myself now in the city of her childhood and as I walk its ancient streets with my new companions I wonder: 'Had she walked these very same streets and seen the same things as I did? Had she once walked with him over this very bridge I am on now?' I can feel her presence here all around me, haunting every shop, on every street, in the way the sakura falls around me and in the flowing of the rivers. Here, as with the scars I have on my cheek and in my heart, I will never be able to forget my crimes nor the love that allowed her to take my place that day in the snow. I don't think I want to forget. Not until I have atoned from my crimes against her.

Perhaps that is why my wanderings have led me here. If there can be anywhere in all of Japan where I might find atonement it would be here in the city where she once lived and which still holds memories of her. Maybe it will be here that I can find some closure to my tragic tale. I hope that here is where I can find the will to lay aside my past and my sword forever. 

For ten years I have wandered hoping to be able to do just that but now, ten years later, I find it getting harder to lay aside the guilt and agony I feel and to lay aside the blade that has been a comfort to me on this long journey to find my answer. I have discovered that even here I am not yet ready to let the past go completely. Those who live by the sword must die by the sword I have been told and I find myself unwilling to lay that part of myself aside yet. Perhaps someday when I have found peace with myself, when I have found atonement for my past and when I have found the will to let go of the bloodstained sword then I will be ready to release myself from my vow. Until that time I will do as I have always done and follow the path of atonement. 

Until then I will answer with this sakabatou.


End file.
